


Conversations

by dirtylittlegreasemonkey



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 18:15:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6387337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtylittlegreasemonkey/pseuds/dirtylittlegreasemonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Off-screen conversations that fit between canon scenes: amidst current events, Robert does his best to support Aaron and those around the pair of them struggle with the shifts in behaviour and feeling towards this new, caring Robert Sugden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conversations

**Author's Note:**

> Set in and around canon episodes so there are illusions to Aaron's ongoing struggle with his quest to get justice for the abuse suffered at the hands of Gordon. No explicit mentions of what happened, only emotions that we've seen on screen. One mention of self harm scars.
> 
> ____
> 
> Thank you as ever for all the wonderful comments and encouragement. And for those who are unsure you can find me at memorieswarm on tumblr :)

**Conversations**

 

**Jan 27 th – Aaron and Ed**

He just manages to answer the phone before the voicemail cuts in. He shakes his brow free from the water droplets that are trickling dry from his shower. It’s been a long day. A trek to Scarborough and back on his own. A Ginsters’ pasty at the services. Not quite the lunch he had in mind. Of course his mum had turned him down, of course she didn’t want to come. He’d hovered over Robert’s name in his contacts considering asking him if he wanted to tag along and then rejected the idea. Who was he kidding? Robert wouldn’t want to come either.

“Hell-o?” he says, hitting the green button to answer the call without really reading the screen. He tightens the towel around himself, catching sight of the scarring as he passes the mirror.

“Hi. Aaron, it’s me.”

Ed. Aaron almost doesn’t know what to say, he watches the dark and empty hole of his mouth open and close and he repeats his greeting again.

“Sorry,” Ed says, stuttering and hesitant. “Have I caught you at a bad time?”

“No, I – er – just got out the shower.” Aaron flicks through all the reasons Ed might have for calling and then he remembers the week before. The blinding, blurring hot delirium of it all. The phone call he made to Ed, apologetic, asking to stay an indefinite period of time. An escape route.

“I’ve been on a tour and…I didn’t hear from you, so I’m guessing you made other plans then.”

Aaron winces, digging the tips of his fingers into the bridge of his nose.

“What are you on?” Ed asks, his patience clearly snapping. “I don’t hear from you in months and then you want to come back here, just like that? Are you in trouble with the police again?”

“No,” Aaron says. “No nothing like that.”

“What then?”

“It doesn’t matter, alright? It’s nothing important.” Aaron sits on his bed. What would have happened if he’d even made it to France? How long could he have run for? Hid for?

“Family drama,” Ed says and clearly doesn’t hear the hitch in Aaron’s breath, because he carries on talking. “Or problems with your boyfriend.”

An image of Robert comes to mind, one he’s tried to flatten every time someone gets even close to saying the word ‘boyfriend’. It’s him, slightly smiling in a dark room. It’s him, large but delicate hands on his shoulder. It’s him, in a soft voice.

“No,” Aaron says and the pause drags out long enough between them that it feels like a knot of bone, a tension that will never been relieved between them. Too much has been said and done. What’s the phrase? Water under the bridge.

“I’d forgotten how much of a strong, silent type you were,” Ed says and there’s as much humour in it as there is blame. Aaron knows what he’s thinking: if only we’d talked, if only you’d talked more. But with that beginning, would they have ever made it to the end?

“Are you…are you seeing anyone?” Aaron asks, because he feels he should and he doesn’t want to talk about last week and the phone call or his plans and reasons for leaving.

“Yeah, I’ve been with someone for a few months,” Ed says and then the mood tilts a little warmer. “You wouldn’t like him.”

“No?”

“No.”

“He’s not French, is he?”

“Italian.”

“Stuck up, then.”

“Sophisticated.”

“Same difference,” Aaron says with a sniff and he hears Ed laugh. Its familiarity softens Aaron a little. Reminds him of a different time, a different place. He feels like he should miss him, but he doesn’t. With Ed he could never really shake off the past. Ed was too gentle with him, too nice. Let him get away with drinking and mood swings and horrible behaviour because he was trying to be the good guy. The safety, security, rescue boyfriend.

“And you?”

“What about me?”

“Breaking any hearts?” Ed says and then, shier. “Are you seeing anyone?”

Robert’s there again in his head. He’s more than just an image now. It’s a feeling of a warm, strong body. It’s a feeling of arms wrapped around him and a thrill, summersaulting away in his stomach. What could he say to Ed? That Robert was nothing like him. That Robert was impossible. That he breathed danger and darkness and insecurities like no one else. That he had killed. That he had saved. Ruined. Remade. Taken him from to every reach of emotion and with every cell, every muscle Aaron wanted him and needed him and loved him. That he was frightening and protective. Confusing and messy and broken. That he was everything. Everything bad and toxic. Everything safe, everything he shouldn’t – but did – want.

“No,” Aaron says. “Not anymore.”

*

**Feb 11 th – Adam and Robert**

He understands. He’s understanding. It’s just, there’s a difference between being understanding and running a business singlehandedly. He won’t be too selfish about it. Aaron deserves the break and the privacy but Adam knows how tough it is to run the scrapyard on his own. He can barely cope for a day let alone however long it’s going to take for Aaron to be in the right headspace to come back to work. If he ever is? How does someone get over something like that when they’ve reopened the wound. Especially someone like Aaron who’s had all the shit thrown at him anyway. And barely survived. Barely. Adam can’t bring himself to think about it too long. So he thinks about manageable insignificant, small problems with his own life that he can think about.

Vic hasn’t stopped giving him grief from the one-time favour he asked of her when Aaron was AWOL and now the atmosphere at the yard is even tenser now that Nicola is working there. To make matters worse, he turns up for work on the first day of Aaron being out of the country to find Robert Sugden in the portacabin, at _his_ desk, with a laptop and in a hi-vis jacket. Here to say. He _had_ to be hallucinating.

“Mate, I haven’t got time for this,” he says, expecting a grilling about accounts. It’s all he’s ever on their back for which all seems unnecessary seeing as the business started as just a front. It was always “accounts this, figures that” when all he really wanted was to get Aaron naked.

“It’s nice of you to join me at-“ Robert looks down at his embarrassingly flashy watch. Rolex. Obviously. “- twenty-six minutes past nine. Do you normally start your day this early or have I just caught you on a good day?” The sarcasm drips from his smile.

Adam’s posture hardens. One word repeating over and over in his head. Twat. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been here since eight-thirty.”

“Yes, but why?” Adam resents the fact that Robert made no mention that he was intending to come and work at the scrapyard.

“You’re a man down, aren’t you?” Robert says, leaning back in the chair.

“What’s that to you?”

“I’m here to help,” he says. “It’s in my best interests to keep this place running smoothly.”

“Does Aaron know about this?” Adam asks and it’s as if the mention of his name shatters Robert’s shield. His face falls and he slumps forward again, as if something is so important on his laptop that it needs close attention. The screen casts light on his eyes making them pale, lifeless moons.

“No,” Robert says. “I can’t get hold of him.”

Adam leans on the doorframe, the cabin door swinging open and letting in a wall of cold air. He doesn’t let Robert know that Aaron’s not been answering his texts either and the silence gave him this knot of sickness in his throat until Chas had said she’d heard from him and he was doing okay.

“Shame,” Adam says.

“How is he?” Robert says, unable to meet Adam’s eyes. It’s deceptively charming, his soft voice, his kicked-puppy expression. Vic clings to this version of him, seems blind to the Robert the rest of the world has to put up with. The last word sort of wobbles out of him, like the indifference breaks and he can’t keep it up anymore.

“He’s alright, yeah. Not sure he’d say the same if he knew you were here lording it over me.”

“I’m doing it for him,” Robert says. Adam can almost hear the echo of what he doesn’t say: _I’m not doing it for you_.

Adam rolls his eyes and looks back to him just to see him press his fingers to his forehead like he’s trying to push his frowns out.

“I care about him.” He doesn’t even blink. He takes a long slow breath. “And if that means sharing an office with you and Nicola to keep his business from failing then…” He opens up his hands. “That’s what I’m going to do. I’ll prove it to you, to Chas. To him. To everyone if I have to.”

Robert stands and closes the lid of his laptop. He straightens the front of the hi-vis jacket and picks up the gloves that sit on the desk in front.

“So do you want help shifting that lot out there, or what?”

Adam tolerates him all morning. His posh boy complaints, his idiotic suggestions about how they might reorganise the yard, his pig-ignorant claims that they could double the efficiency of the yard by doing this or that. Then Nicola arrives and they’re briefly joined in a mutiny against her, until Adam realises she’s on his side when it comes to Robert and he remembers Vic telling him that Nicola popped Robert’s cherry and the morning perks up. He’s never seen Robert so awkward, so quick to escape and offer to do a coffee run.

*

**Feb 25 th – Victoria and Robert**

There’s a Masterchef final repeat on TV and she’s seen it before, so she knows who wins, but late at night when she can’t sleep and she’s trawled through the rest of the channels, it’s her comfort food. Adam went to bed for an early night. He’s denied it to her face, but Vic’s pretty sure he’s finding it hard to sleep worrying about what Aaron’s going through.

And as for Robert, she barely sees him anymore. His days of moping about watching This Morning seem a distant memory. He’s always at the pub now, gravitating towards Chas, disappearing out the back to talk to Aaron. He’s so quiet and sad, and not in the self-pitying way he was when his marriage was over. Sometimes she can hear him in his room shuffling about in the middle of the night. He tells her he doesn’t have time to talk. He’s always leaving rooms, just when she thinks he might want to talk.

The front door closing startles her and she sees Robert come in, shrug off his coat and start blowing warmth back into his fists. It’s late, around eleven, but he starts making himself a coffee, oblivious for a moment that she’s even still up.

“What you doing sitting there in the dark?” he says, leaning through the hatch and raises a mug at her. “Want one?”

“Go on then,” she says and mutes the telly. “Just watching the end of this. Where’ve you been to this late?”

“York,” he says, his voice muffled as he moves around the kitchen.

“What for?”

“Just…stuff,” he says.

“Something dodgy?” she asks, planting her hands on her legs and sighing. She stands up, ready to start lecturing him. “Don’t tell me it’s something dodgy.”

“It’s not,” he says.

Victoria watches the pictures on the screen play out in silence – a balsamic reduction drizzled on a plate - and waits for Robert to bring the drinks through. He has to talk sometime. He comes in, putting the teas down and slumps in the opposite chair, running a hand through his hair. It droops at the front, casting a curled shadow over his lined forehead. He’s exhausted, eyes pink and cheeks pale with the cold.

“So why did you go to York today?” she says, angling to face him. He’s made her tea in her favourite mug and she acknowledges the gesture, by taping the china with her finger and smiling at him.

His hands slide together and then apart. His jaw tightens like he’s not going to say anything and then he leans forward, rubbing his hands against his legs. “I went with Aaron to see his stepmum, to see if she could help…with the case.”

Vic feels her eyebrows shoot up. “Right. And can she?”

Robert’s head drops and he shakes it. She sees his throat tighten and then this shaky exhale comes out with it. A look passes his face and there’s a blip in Vic’s heartbeat when she sees it. It’s as if someone else’s grief has bled into his features.

“Aaron was pining everything Sandra testifying and she won’t. She…” Robert runs his hands across his face, fingertips dragging on his skin. He looks up at the ceiling. “He’s terrified, Vic. He’s opened it all up again and for what? The police are doing nothing. He thinks Sandra will take Gordon’s side. And what can I tell him? That everything’s going to be alright?”

Vic hears the catch in his voice, the frustration. She stands up and kneels in front of him, putting her hands on his knees. He’s still winter cold. She knows just by looking at him just how loud his head is right now. “You are doing everything you can do for him. You’re there for him.”

“It’s not enough,” he says. “There’s got to be something else. Something else that’ll help his case.”

“You can’t force it, Rob. You need to let the police deal with it.” She squeezes his knees.  

“And sit back and watch him fall apart?” He shakes his head, his expression rigid. He’s not even looking at her, he’s fixed on some invisible point in the distance. She’s seen a similar look on Adam when he told her about the abuse, when he talked about wanting to kill Gordon. But Robert rocks forward and she can see him churning through plans and schemes, tossing each one aside.

“He’s not going to fall apart,” Vic says, rising up on her feet to squeeze onto the chair beside him. He puts his arm around her but she can tell he’s not there, not really. “He’s got you. He’s got all of us,” she says, leaning into his chest. “You know, I’m really proud of you.”

He scoffs a bit, the air making his chest jolt under her head. “What for?”

“For being there for him.”

He rests his chin on top of her head and sighs, loaded with a thousand things he hasn’t said yet.

“I can’t imagine what he’s been through,” she says, crushed by the sadness of it all.

“I just want to see that sick bastard locked away for good.”

“And he will be,” Vic says, trying not to feel alarmed at the venom in his voice.

“He has to be. Aaron deserves to get his life back on track.”

Vic knows she shouldn’t push it. She should be content to just let her brother get on with things, let herself fill in the gaps of his silences, his disappearances. But he’s been different lately and what kind of sister would she be if she didn’t ask him about it, let him know that she’s there for him too?

“And where do you fit into that?” she asks, separating herself from his chest to look him in the eye, show him that he’s not alone in this.

He looks down, eyes studying the open palm of his hand. “Somewhere,” he says. “When he’s ready.”

“Well? That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he says and turns his hand over until it’s flat on his leg. The muscles of his fingers flex and then he smooths palm out over his jeans. “I turned him down. Today.”

“What do you mean?”

“He tried to kiss me.” Robert doesn’t meet her eye.

Vic stays silent, still. Afraid if she moves or breathes in the wrong way he might close up on her again. She’s known he loves Aaron for a long time, but he hasn’t known. Or if he did, he didn’t want to. So he tells her about his day, about wanting Aaron but resisting, and she listens, she deciphers the silences, the dragged painful pauses. He doesn’t tell her much, but she understands.

*****

**29 th Feb – Adam and Victoria **

Vic’s re-plumping the pillow on her side of the bed, but it’s Adam’s foot on the creaky floorboard by the bedroom door that makes her look up. He has the door ajar, ears pointed out to the hallway.

“What are you doing?” she says. She has her hair up and plaited like a Swiss princess in a fairytale, he wants to go over to her and kiss her but he’s listening to a low little laugh coming up from downstairs. The thoughts of kissing are pushed out by wariness.

He shushes her and then she creeps over, pulling her nightshirt down over her legs and pressing herself against his back. She pulls herself taller to kiss the back of his neck – well, just short of his neck - and then tilts her head to listen with him.

“Do you think we should have left them down there alone?” Adam asks.

They came back from the pub, skin singing with beer and Adam’s arm looped around his wife’s neck, lips nipping at her cheek. They’d been strolling ahead down Main Street and he’d heard Aaron zipping up his hoodie a few paces behind and Robert next to him, the silence screaming between them. If Vic wasn’t in his ear about the two of them all the time then maybe he wouldn’t notice it so much but Robert’s like a different guy around Aaron. How did they never notice it buzzing between them before? Even he can see it and he isn’t exactly invested in his brother in law’s life at the best of times. Robert can barely keep his eyes off Aaron. His cheeks go all round and soft and the smile isn’t his usual sort, it actually reaches his eyes. Him and Aaron have all these fragmented little looks, half-spoken jokes only they understand. And then if Robert’s left out of the joke that the three of them share, Aaron pities him and fills him in, his face turned down and coy.

It was the same when they got back to the house and Robert handed out the cans of beer. Aaron and Robert’s hands touched across the cold tin and Adam stopped mid-sentence distracted by the look between them that swallowed up the rest of the world. Robert made sure to sit on the opposite sofa, leaning forward on his knees. Listening hardly talking. That was weird in itself. Vic kept touching Robert’s arm which Adam noticed even when he was in full flow talking to Aaron or showing him a video he’d seen on Facebook.

Then when Adam was about to pick up a third can, Vic yawned. It didn’t take a genius to work out it wasn’t entirely natural and she pulled on his sleeve saying, “Babe, I think it’s time for bed, don’t you?”   

Adam looked at Aaron and then at Robert, who was looking at Aaron. He wasn’t looking at Aaron like glass like other people were lately, sympathetic at the cracks, he looked at Aaron probably like he always had done. It’s just no one noticed before. Adam shot a look towards his wife and then separated himself from the sofa, dusting down air from his jeans. He didn’t want to make a big show of leaving the pair of them alone, but his and Vic’s departure removed a very obvious blockade in the centre.  He’d never walked slower to the door. The ball was in Aaron’s court now, he wanted to know what happened next.

“Can I get you another, or are you heading off?” Robert asked Aaron. The second question was barely spoken. It was resisted, pulled back into his mouth by his teeth.

“Go on,” Aaron said and smiled – catching. Adam saw it catapult into Robert’s chest and then he left them to it. Vic was on the stair in front giving him the look, Cupid’s arrow hidden in her pout.

Upstairs, with her hands around his middle, she tuts at him. “What’s the worst that can happen?” she says.

They both lean a bit closer. Robert’s voice sounds wordless, just a soft, honeyed volume. Then Aaron, a base underneath. It seems weird to Adam that to the rest of them they were barely acquaintances, seeming to have had nothing to talk about, no common ground. But here they were, after months of secret meetings and hidden conversation and a playing field far above their expectations. They had memories together, private jokes and a thread of intimacy in all their interactions that still came as such a surprise. Aaron knew things about Robert that rose into conversations that even Vic didn’t know. Robert knew Aaron in a way the rest of them could only scratch the surface of.

“Oh come on, you know your brother.”

She steps back from him, housewife hands on hips. “What’s that meant to mean?”

“Well he’s hardly known for being a gentleman, is he?” Adam can feel her temper collecting and he looks away, pauses for a few seconds, tries a new tact. “Aaron’s in a bad place and _that_ is the last thing he needs.”

“He’s a grown man.”

“And so’s your brother and I don’t trust him.”

“Well you might not, but I do. And so does Aaron.”

Adam huffs a bit, leans on the doorframe. He can hear a bit more of their conversation if he concentrates, once the sound of Vic’s feet on the carpet dies away. She leaves him, heading to the bathroom and Adam hovers in the doorway, listening.

 _…something on my face. **No**. Okay, then what? **It’s just nice to see you like this.** It’s been a while. **Yeah.**_ (a pause that lasts too long, a shy nervous laugh) _I’ve really had too much to drink. **One more?** Nah, you’re alright. Don’t want the hangover. **Share one?** If you like. _(another pause, Adam wonders if they’re sitting together, if they’re looking at each other) _I really should get off. **Why don’t you stay? I’m sure Adam and Vic won’t mind. It’s late.** _

Vic comes out of the bathroom and Adam retreats back into their room like his feet are on fire. He watches her, eyes white and wide when she enters the room.

“Maybe you should be worried,” she says, a sly smile trapped on her lips as she walks past Adam sitting on the edge of the bed pulling off his shoes and socks. “I just heard them tearing each other’s clothes off.

“You’re so funny, you know that?”

“That’s why you love me,” she says, peeling back the covers. She pats her hands down on it once she’s in the bed. “You never know, it might be nice.”

“What? Listening to them two go at it?!”

“No!” she says. “You know, if they got back together. We could all hang out, the four of us. Like tonight, without the weird sexual tension.”

“I see enough of your brother as it is.”

“Well maybe you might just have to get used to the idea.”

“Please tell me you’re not planning on match-making them?” Adam says, tossing his dirty clothes under the bed.

“They love each other,” she says. “It’ll happen sooner or later.”

“And you’re just going to nudge it along?”

Vic says nothing, just gives him this angelic smile and opens up the covers his side. Best not to argue on a night when she’s cute and smiley.

*

**15 th March – Cain and Chas**

Chas has had a face on her all day and Cain’s sure it’s more than just the plea hearing tomorrow. Sugden came in earlier – briefly – and the look she gave him was like something she’d trod it. Cain reckons that maybe, just maybe that bullet to the chest did Robert good, because he’s all gentle voiced and doughy eyed these days. It still doesn’t make it any easier to understand why Aaron went there in the first place. He has the kind of face only a mother could love. Punchable. But it does make him slightly less easy to hate when he’s soft like that around Aaron. They might not like him, but he’s been Aaron’s support when the rest of them couldn’t be. And even when he’s not around Aaron, when he’s walking into the pub or sat at a different table, Cain still catches Aaron looking at him. The stupid git. The only person more hopeless when it comes to men is Debbie and that’s not a compliment.

After Robert scooted straight out the pub again after the death glares, Aaron left a quarter of his pint foaming on the bar top and headed out the back. Chas is springy with worry these days, afraid that if she stops asking if Aaron’s okay, if she stops noticing when he leaves a room that he’ll break. He’s stronger than they are, but guilt pulses through Chas now. Cain can hear it, louder than her heart.

“Spit it out,” Cain says, finishing Aaron’s abandoned pint. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’ve got a lot on my mind if you hadn’t noticed!” Chas says.

“What was all that with Sugden before?”

She scoffs, tightening her arms around her body. Her stubbornness can make him love and hate her all at once. “That snake,” she says.

“I thought he was on our side?”

“He’s bad news,” she says, her eyes a black scowl.

“Well we all know that,” Cain says. “But I thought we were doing what’s best for Aaron.”

“This _is_ what’s best for Aaron.”

Cain looks at her long enough, sharp enough for her to unfold her arms and put her hands on her hips. “What?” she says, giving him the whites of her eyes.

“Come off it, Chas. You said it yourself. Sugden’s moping around after him like a teenage girl and – god knows why – but he’s the only one Aaron seems to want to say more than two words to.”

“I’m his _mother_ , why can’t he talk to me?”

“ _Because_ you’re his mother. That’s why.”

Her face crumples like paper. He can see Aaron in her frowns, the lines on her forehead.

“Aaron sees himself as your little protector, he’s not going to pile all this on you,” Cain says, swishing the last slosh of beer around the bottom of the glass. “And we might not like it, but it seems like Sugden’s made himself Aaron’s knight in shining armour.”

*

**16 th March – Belle, Lisa and Chas**

On the way to the court house they have to stop off for petrol and Aaron, needing the air, offers to fill up the car. From the back seats Belle watches Chas fish about in her jacket for her phone and then when there are no messages, she pushes it back into the pocket with a thick tut.

“Something wrong?” Belle says. Ever since the implosion of her mum and dad’s marriage she feels like she notices every tiny detail. Looks, conversation, behaviour. She’s learnt not to trust what comes out of people’s mouths, but what they don’t say – that gives them away,

“Oh,” Chas says, looking at her in the mirror. She flashes a quick smile. No teeth. “No, no, nothing.”

“What was that this morning, about Robert? I thought you hated him.”

“Belle!” Lisa said, hitting her on the arm.

“What?” She shrugged. She doesn’t have much of an opinion on Robert really. Handsome in a smug, obvious way. Loaded in a way that to her seems unappealing and smarmy. She’s only really heard about him through the eyes of other people. Lachlan hates him. Hated him as a step-dad, hated his try hard attitude and poor attempts to discipline, hated him more when he left Chrissie in a mess. The Dingles hate him. Mostly. Aaron is a slight exception of course, although it’s hard to tell how much resentment is left in him and how much is just Aaron being, well, Aaron. And then there had been the rumours about Katie – Katie _definitely_ hated him – but no one had said anything more about that for a long time. He seems different lately and she’s starting to think that whatever it was that made everyone despise him died when he’d been shot.

Chas sighs, like this was the start of a long story. “I saw him yesterday, told him he should come to the hearing. Not my choice. But I asked him for Aaron’s sake.”

“But Aaron said he told him not to come,” Belle says, watching Aaron replace the petrol nozzle back at the pump and head towards the garage shop to pay.

“I might’ve…forced the matter.”

“Maybe you’re right, love. Maybe it is better just family,” Lisa says.

Chas looks across the forecourt and Belle can see her studying Aaron, her heart following his every move. “Right now,” - she says – “Robert’s been there for him in a way I can’t be. And he’s just about holding it together when Robert’s around.”

“Let’s hope he’s had a change of heart then,” Lisa says.

Fat chance of that, Belle thinks. He’s a no show so far. She’s used to people letting her family down and it looks as if Robert Sugden’s another one she can add to her list.

*

**16 th March – Aaron and Robert**

His skin smells slightly sugary. There’s a warm press of skin contact – his ear, his hair – against his head but mostly Aaron concentrates on the solid weight of his body, his arms secured around him. His hands tighten and ease. It’s real. I’m here. That’s what it says. Their bodies sway slightly, foot to foot. Robert’s hand warms his lower back and Aaron’s eye close. Now he doesn’t see the light on the water, or the moonlight sprayed across damp leaves. He feels Robert’s pulse clear and twinned with his own.

He leans his head to the side, on Robert’s shoulder and feels the climb of Robert’s hand to the back of his neck, the stroke of his fingers against his hairline. He doesn’t want the moment to end, but a breezes soaks through his skin like a cold flannel and despite himself, he shivers.

“You’re freezing,” Robert says and rubs his hands roughly on Aaron’s torso and the moment of intimacy is lost. They pull apart, hands stuffed back into pockets. “I’ll walk you home.” Robert touches his upper arm and Aaron notices a hot rash on the side of Robert’s face where his stubble has rubbed against him in the embrace.

“Not yet,” Aaron says, looking out across the bridge again. “I can’t face going back to a pub full.”

“Okay,” Robert says and places a tentative hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “If you want me to go I’ll-“

“No. Stay,” Aaron says and sinks into a belief that Robert can read his mind, when his arm slides around his shoulders and remains there, sharing his heat, his comfort.

They look out across the water, the spit bubbles forming on the surface. The moon looks jagged in the reflection, ripples of silver. He feels like floating downstream, letting it take him anywhere. Just somewhere far away. Robert’s thumb is a gentle pressure on his muscle, lulls him into relaxation.

“I brought a girl here once,” he says, sheepishly. “When I was about eleven. I heard some of the older lads in school say it was romantic.”

Aaron scoffs, his chest huffing slightly with laughter. He’s seen the photos, that blond mop of hair, the angelic face. He was like a cherub on a Christmas card. “And did it work?”

“She said she only met me for a dare. All her friends told her I smelt of cows and she wanted to know if it was true.”

“Nice. Kids, eh?” Aaron says and then turned, looking at his handsome profile in the dark. Their eyes meet, his a glittering black in the moonlight. Aaron scrunches his face, pretends to sniff him. Robert grins and grips his shoulder.

“Look,” he says, his voice quiet and serious again. The palm of his hand makes warm arches between his shoulder blades. “Do you want to come back to mine for a bit? For a beer or coffee or just to crash…DVD…whatever you want.”

His head hangs a little. There’s no pressure, no expectation. Robert makes him feel, even for an hour or two, weightless. Free.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’d like that.”

It’s him, slightly smiling in the dark. It’s him, large but delicate hands on his shoulder. It’s him, in a soft voice.

 

 

 


End file.
